A Dance of the Periphery
by RibbonsInHerHair
Summary: Gendry meets several different Braavosi women... with wolf-eyes and stinging swords and sharp, unlady-like tongues.
1. Mercy

The first time Gendry was in Braavos, the damp of the canals sank into his bones and made its home there in a way he liked not. He called Flea Bottom his home for most of his life; he was used to the heat and stink of too many bodies crushed together in that one place. He had supposed Braavos would be as steamy as Lys, or perhaps Myr, but the truth of it was that the former refugee colony was further north than King's Landing in Westeros.

Well, he mused with little humor, he supposed he was a refugee too, now, so Braavos might suit him well yet.

He had taken to wandering Westeros in search of what little work could be given, but wandering was work in itself, and dangerous at that. He had almost lost an eye to bandits in the Riverlands, a pinky to a damned lion in ragged crimson, and his toes to the ever-growing cold.

As for the Brotherhood…he had no stomach for the type of justice they served now.

So to escape it (her) and the cold and the countless others who wanted his head to satisfy their own game of thrones, he had taken his leave of Westeros.

And so he found himself, nestled into damp and rotting straw in the saddest animal keep in Braavos, keeping the pigs company thanks to the pity of the brothel madam who owned them and the last of his coin.

He could hear the grunts and moans of the whores and the customers through the flimsy walls. Annoying, but having to hear sounds of pleasure was infinitely better than the screams of agony that had often accompanied his nights with the Brotherhood.

The door creaked open, and the brothel's serving girl crept in. She came to stand before him, a lanky little thing on the edge of womanhood, with a wide mouth and inky hair and shrewd eyes far older than her years. She would make a fine whore one day.

She squinted at him, trying to see his face under the darkness of his hood, and he was about to ask what she wanted when she produced a heel of dark bread from her skirt. He took it carefully, with a nod.

It was hard as stone and had a biting taste. Delicious.

"Name?"

He startled a bit. He had not expected her to speak the Common Tongue. Master Mott had once told him that the Braavosi often refused to learn anything but their bastard form of Valyrian. He took another bite of the bread, and chewed slowly, hoping the quiet would force her away. She tilted her head to peer at him again, without success.

A shriek pierced their silence, petering off into a heady moan, followed by several rapid bangs of a headboard against a wall.

He cleared his throat. "Waters." Safe enough, he supposed.

She twirled a piece of her hair absently. "Much water here. It is known. You like it."

He grunted. "Maybe." Silence again. "You speak the language of Westeros?"

"A little." She nibbled on the corner of her bottom lip, then bit down firmly.

He knew a girl, once, who did that when she lied to him. Gendry sighed long and low.

"What's your name, then?" he asked.

"Mercedene," She scratched one bare, dirty foot against the back of her calf, and gave him a smile, a quirk of her wide mouth that pleased him unexpectedly. "But you call me Mercy, yes?"

He held up the bread she had gifted him with and smiled back. "Well for this, you are the most merciful queen in all the seven heavens. I will call you M'lady, instead."

She did not laugh at his jape like he thought she would. Instead, she stared at him, smile gone, those clear eyes changing suddenly, piercing him in a way that made him wholly uncomfortable.

"I am not a lady," she fairly growled, teeth bared. Her thin shoulders hackled, in offended response to his suggestion. Her stance became aggressive, as if in combat, legs spread and planted firm, as if ready to fell the one who would dare think her a weak-willed maiden. If he had not already been seated, she probably would have shoved him.

Gendry stared in shock. The unbelievable similarity tugged in his chest so suddenly, so sharply, that he felt he could not breathe. She would be about this age, he thought wildly. But no, no, the face was all wrong, the hair, the lips…

"Girl," he croaked, hand stretching out to grasp a thin wrist and drag her close, a half-formed thought racing incoherently through his skull. But she saw his intention, and backed away.

"I….I go," she muttered, and her face seemed to morph, and no longer was a warrior standing before him, but a simple brothel maid. She gazed at him for a breath of a second more.

A flurry of skirts and she was gone.


	2. The Barber

The next time Gendry was in Braavos, he was tanned and tough with calluses on his palms, a black beard that was getting troublesome, and a gold dragon in his pocket.

Sailing had been hard, tougher even than smithing in the dead of summer with not a suggestion of a breeze to cool him, and his muscles still ached deep down from the dull, repetitious pulling of the oars.

But it paid better than most work, what with the Iron Fleet terrorizing the waters, capturing vessels and plundering them of loot and men. Victarion had given the Iron Islanders a taste of the East's riches, and now they lusted after it like Lyseni whores.

Men willing to sail were few and far between, but demand for goods was as high as ever, so merchants had opened their fat purses in the hopes of luring a few desperate men to the oars. Gendry had been one such man.

He had been lucky that there had not been trouble on the open sea, and now he wanted nothing more than a warm bed and a stiff drink to celebrate living on through another day.

He found himself quickly in a dockside inn, a dimly-lit place that clearly did a healthy side business of whoring, if the amount of scantily clad women and girls lounging on sailors' laps was any indication.

But it was fairly quiet, warm, and relatively clean, and he was not going to find anything better this close to port.

One look at the dragon had the madam sending girls scurrying to prepare his food and drink and to draw hot water for a bath.

He sat in the common room to eat, and the grime and sweat of the journey on his skin felt all the more pronounced now that he knew he had a bath coming.

The stew-filled trencher was heavenly after a month of hardtack and he easily polished off three tankards of ale with the food. He would have had a fourth but a buzz was setting in and a few whores had tried to wind their arms about his shoulders, so he took his leave to find his room and his bath.

It was the best room they had, clearly, with a well-stuffed straw mattress that had curtains to pull closed about it, as well as a few chairs and a small desk for writing. The tub was pulled into the center of the room, steam rising invitingly from its lip.

Gendry shucked off his clothes quickly, and piled them by the door to be collected by one of the girls. He inspected himself briefly, noticing how the long work of rowing had raised new muscles along his left arm, now more on par with his smithing arm. The hair on his chest was thicker, now, he noted, and he might have even grown a little. He was a man grown in age already, but his body was not done changing, making him stronger, taller, broader even still. Padding over to the tub, he saw there were towels folded daintily beside it, and a bar of rough, sweet-smelling soap. He stepped over the edge and sank into the heat with a loud, tired moan, tipping his head back and closing his eyes as the water massaged the soreness from his body.

A quiet laugh disturbed him from his rest.

Gendry's head shot up to see a girl – no, a woman – observing him from the doorway. "Enjoying yourself?" she asked, eyebrow quirked. He had the distinct feeling she was laughing at him.

"What do you want?" he huffed, sinking a little lower the tub. She grinned a little wider, and placed a hand on a hip.

"Madam said you're a Westerosi, and she thought you might want some company from another who speaks your language." She took a seat beside the tub and glanced shamelessly in, but the dirt from his travels had already muddied the water.

"I won't pay the coin for a whore, if that's what you're getting at," he replied, but he eyed her anyway.

She was quite pretty, with soft, yellow curls and small straight teeth. She wore a flimsy dress, like all the other girls there, a bright blue that matched her eyes.

She rolled those lovely eyes at him. "Don't fret, ser, I promise not to take your coin nor your virginity."

He gaped at her. "I…I'm not-"

"Oh, really? I had you for a brother of the Seven, from the way you rebuffed Miranna and the others downstairs. Well, no matter. Come, tell me of your travels. I long for a good story and to hear the Common Tongue."

He was so shocked by her forward and brisk behavior – whores were usually much more coy and flirtatious – that his story fell from his lips easily. He told her of the Myrish silk they had carried, and feathers from the Summer Isles. Of the purple dyes that looked almost black that cost more than a man's life. She was a good audience, asking questions and listening close to all the details, gasping in wonder and laughing at his story of the dwarf performers he had seen near Mereen, riding animals like horses.

He made sure to include an anecdote of a pretty serving girl he had bedded while they had made port in Slaver's Bay.

"A slave, then." She responded dismissively.

"No, a free woman," he growled back, annoyed.

Another mocking grin slipped onto her lips, "Did she wear a heavy gold necklace? Those are called collars there, you know."

He simply shook his head at her. "What about you, then? Tell me a story." She tilted her head to peer at him, eyes clear and sharp. He shivered a little, though the water was still warm. "What do you want to know?"

He splashed the water a little. "About Westeros, I guess. Where are you from? You have no Braavosi accent when you speak."

She smiled again, though with less mirth than before, "Ah, good ser, that is something I would have to take your coin for. But let me tell you this: When I lived in Westeros, I worked for a man who cut hair and beards, and now I am quite good at it myself. And it looks like a rat died in yours."

A strong laugh rolled through Gendry's chest. "Are you asking to cut my hair?"

"No, no, just the beard I would think. It is horrendously tangled." She produced a small silver pair of scissors from her gown, wiggled them in his direction and raised her brows.

"If those are half as sharp as your tongue, you may accidentally cut my throat." She laughed, a pure, lovely sound, head tossed back carelessly, exposing the delicate line of her throat.

Gendry blushed.

"Never fear, my hands are quick and steady." She winked at him, and grinned a little. "In all my many services."

He could feel the heat spreading to his ears now. "Ah…well, alright then." He cleared his throat. "Carry on." She picked up a chipped bowl from beneath the tub and handed it to him. "Here, hold this below your chin to catch the falling hairs." The woman then leaned close, and began snipping parts here and there, her soft, cool hands brushing gently across his cheeks and lips.

"But maybe you had the right of it," she japed as she clipped along his jawline, "it would be very easy to kill a man this way. I could easily be an assassin, and you'd never suspect it." She giggled at the absurdity. "Do I look like a cold-blooded killer, ser?"

Gendry looked at her, studying. No, she was soft and pliant, not a killer. He had seen enough killers to know... But there was something about her. Her eyes gave nothing away and glittered almost dangerously when the light caught them a certain way. Wild, they were, and he suddenly felt as if he was standing in the shadows of Harrenhall, staring at the rain-soaked figure with blood on her blade and vengeance in her eyes…

He reached up a hand and, clasping both of her wrists in one palm, took her hands gently away from his face. "I can finish the rest." She frowned, "I only have to wash it and it will be done." She grabbed up the soap and cloth and moved close again, reaching. He moved his face away, setting the bowl down, outside the tub, so he could grab her hands again. "No, it is enough. I will wash it with the rest of myself once you leave."

A queer, annoyed look crossed her face. "You have to wash it a certain way, else you will make it all a mess again." She slapped his hands away quite firmly, and dipped her hand and the soap into the water, grinning at the face he made. "Come, let me-"

"Enough!"

He hadn't meant to shout, but her animal eyes and curving smile and his nakedness had been too much, too different and too familiar and he wanted her gone or maybe in his bed, he didn't know, and-

Her face changed so suddenly he almost missed it, the way her easy, laughing features became hard, her curved lips twisting into a scowl. "Bull-headed bastard of a boy!" she yelled, and threw the heavy soap at him with enough force that he grunted when it bounced off his chest.

He stared at her, stunned. "You-" But she was not finished. She smacked the water forcefully, throwing much of it in his face. He had not expected it, and it burned its way down his nose and throat.

By the time he had coughed most of it from his lungs and wiped it from his eyes, the woman was gone.

* * *

**Let me know what you think! I'm thinking of having Gendry have a run in with a female bravos next. Or maybe Cat of the Canals.**


	3. The Bravo

After the incident with the woman in the inn, Gendry made a point of avoiding Braavos in his travels. The women were free and wild spirits and they reminded him too much of her. He had tried Meereen, but he was sure the Targaryen Queen would not take well to knowing that the bastard son of the Baratheon Usurper was making his home within her walls. Nevertheless, he had stayed for a little, using a different name and growing out his beard and hair, to earn some coin for another journey, and had seen her once or twice in the city. She, too, had sharp eyes and a firm countenance, a woman who knew what hurts the world could bring and still faced it unflinchingly, defiantly.

It was the similarity that was most dangerous to him, he thought. Her likeness made him want to push through the crowd, kneel at her feet and announce himself, pledge his service to her, promising to protect her with his life.

The Stark girl would have laughed at him and called him stupid for such a display. Daenerys Targaryen would likely have fed him to her dragons.

So he kept his silence, and left Meereen as quickly as possible. The only ship he could secure, however, would only go to Braavos, so he soon found himself in the canals again, glumly staring up at the broad shoulders of the Titan.

The first thing he did was seek out a barber – his hair had grown so shaggy that he resembled a bear, and it made him look more dangerous than he wanted. One did not want to seem aggressive in a city where bravos made their reputations on the blood of strong opponents. He found a likely spot, though the owner spoke not a lick of the Common Tongue. With his broken Braavosi, a series of hand gestures between the two, and several coppers, he managed to get what he wanted.

Though this barber's hands were neither soft nor gentle, and no stories were given or told.

Thus, freshly shorn with a beard cropped closer to his face, Gendry wandered the narrow streets that lined the canals; eating some cooked clams and watching the courtesans' boats float by. He entered a smith that leaned dangerously far out over the water to ask for work, but there was none to be found, he was told. The Westerosi apprentice told him he could try the theater, because they always needed new props, and the building itself was sagging slowly into the earth. They were in desperate need of new steelwork, the boy supposed, and they might be able to hire him.

The Gate, it was called, on the edge of Drowned Town.

He thanked the boy, and tried to make his way to the theater, but after getting inextricably lost for the fourth time in the winding alleys and secret corridors of Braavos, he gave up. It was getting dark, by then, and he was alone and clearly not a local. He strode on purposefully down a few rickety causeways that spanned little offshoots of the canal, trying not to notice the curious glances he was getting from the few men and women lounging about the tiny streets.

Gendry looked about for an inn, but none of the gilded signs hanging from the shops seemed to indicate a place to stay. He took a few more turns at random, hoping to chance upon something, and realized he was at a dead end. The small channel he had been following ended abruptly in a large reservoir, surrounded in a square by ramshackle houses built directly into the water, standing on long stalks like birds from the Summer Isles, but uglier birds he had never seen, for the houses sagged with age and the windows and doors looked the yawning maws of anguished beasts in the half light of the dusk. Through the mess of spindly, rotted legs, he could see what looked like a wide avenue and dry land.

There was nothing for it. He shrugged his small pack of belongings a little higher on his back, and preceded to grasp on the nearest spindle and haul himself to the next one. The legs of the houses crisscrossed every which way, in a desperate attempt to keep the houses afloat, and some were nearly horizontal, offering good footholds as he maneuvered slowly through this bizarre forest to dry, safe land.

He damned the whole city to seven hells when one particularly putrid branch gave way beneath his right boot.

He was more than halfway through, sweating a little from the effort when a voice from his left and slightly above him echoed out in mirth, "There are many cats in Braavos. It is known. But this one is more a monkey than anything else. What grace you have!"

Gendry snapped his head around. There, in the crook of two beams, he could make out a shadowed figure perched easily on his heels, and the gleam of a sword being twirled casually between two hands.

This was exactly what Gendry had not wanted. "Looking for a fight, bravo? I have no sword, and a duel against me as I am now, tangled up in here, will not prove your skill at all."

"Ah, but in so saying you admit that a duel against you on fair footing and equal terms would bring me great recompense."

"What?" Gendry barked, annoyed.

"It means, monkey, that I will wait for you to get on land, I will give you a sword, and then we will duel." Gendry made out the glint of a toothy smile at the words.

"I don't wish to duel you."

"It is already decided. Come meet your fate, O great gorilla."

The bravo swung down easily from his seat, dancing lightly from beam to beam, sometimes twirling through the air dramatically, and quickly reached the firm ground on the other side. Gendry growled, and pulled himself through with no small amount of effort.

The bravo clapped his hands with delight. "Well done!" It was meant to be as condescending as it sounded, Gendry knew. The bravo stepped into the moonlight – for now it was dark for true – and Gendry saw the figure clearly for the first time.

A woman.

* * *

**I decided to make this one two parts! Also, if anyone has suggestions for further incarnations of Arya, message me or leave a comment. **


	4. The Bravo Part II

She wore the same gaudy clothing that was so popular among the bravos – a jerkin that was half orange and half a pale yellow over a loose tunic of shimmering gold silk. It was so fine that he could see a hint of her lithe, brown arms through it. Her breeches were equally ridiculous, loose and draping around her thighs and knees but tight around her calves. To allow for movement he supposed, but their practicality did not extend to the fact that they were dyed a crimson that would make a seasoned whore blush. Her word belt was black leather with a gold clasp depicting two naked figures locked in a passionate embrace. The woman had her hair loose and wild about her breasts, tied away from her face at the temples with braids shot through with silver and gold silk threads and a jade earring dangling from her left lobe.

Her costume made his eyes hurt.

Despite all the extravagance, however, her face was rather plain, though she had full lips and high cheekbones that only served to make her appear more dangerous.

She allowed his stare for a bit, then loosed one of the two swords she had hanging from her belt.

"Here, monkey. Every duel is a dance, but a dance needs two partners. It is known." She tossed him the sword. He caught it easily.

It was a bravo sword, light and thin and deadly sharp.

Like a needle.

He huffed a breath and lowered the blade so the tip touched the ground. "As I said before, I do not wish to duel you."

She grinned maliciously, "I thought the blood of Westerosi bastards runs hot, but it seems that is not the case. Maybe it is cold, perhaps. "

He bristled. "I am no craven, bravo."

"Maybe you are and maybe you are not. Let us see, yes?"

She did not wait for his response. Leaping forward, she brought her blade up in a smooth arc, nearly swiping the tip through the soft flesh of his neck, but he parried just in time, clumsily, not used to the lightness of the sword. He was a man built for broadswords and shields, solid weapons that could rend armor with crushing blows.

She flowed like water, not constrained by plate or mail, attacking high then sinking impossibly low to slash at his knees and ankles. He could only deflect them as they came, light but deadly, raining down upon him with a speed barely known to the knights of Westeros. She nearly cut him several times, but years of fighting for his life had made him faster than his size suggested, if not more graceful. The jabs he could not dodge he tried to catch on the flat of his blade, but she often struck the edge, sending shocks up his arm.

Gendry realized he would not be able to defend himself forever. With a roar, he charged at her, forcing his way inside her guard, overwhelming her with his size. He had her now.

But then her free hand came up and laid an open handed blow to his ear. The world spun for a second as she skipped easily away from him.

"You should not focus so on the sword, bastard. It is not the only weapon I use," her voice was full of laughter. She was enjoying this.

Gendry grunted. "That so. I'll remember." She did not wait for him to straighten fully before she went for his throat again. He swung his sword up, deflecting the tip of hers again, but she did something, so quick he could not see it, a flick of the wrist and a blur of the fingers, and just as her sword was sailing back, it changed direction, over his raised sword, and bit into the meat of his bicep.

Cursing, he leapt back, blood pounding in his ears. It was not terribly deep, he thought, peering down at the tear and the slowly reddening cloth, but it stung like seven hells. He gripped his fingers around the hilt, testing, and the pain lanced up into the wound as soon as he did. Not good at all.

She snickered at the grimace on his face. "It is a little scratch, is it not? Surely, that is not all you are worth, a great ape like you?" Gendry scowled and shifted back into a fighting stance.

"Come and find out, woman." The moonlight glinted off her jade earring and that was the only warning he had of her movement, lunging in with sword arm fully extended, giving her impossible reach.

But he was ready. He spun to the right, dropping the sword deftly into his left hand as he did so, using the momentum to bring his good arm around in a violent stroke that whistled through the air. She doubled over backward to avoid it, springing off of her free hand to stand again, but she was unbalanced, and Gendry took the opening.

He aimed a vicious sidestroke at her throat that would have parted her head from her shoulders despite the lightness of the bravo blade, but she managed to arrest its momentum, barely, with a two-handed grip on her sword.

She did not even see his fist before he smashed it into the unprotected side of her body and the tell-tale crack of a rib echoed over the water behind them.

She gasped in pain, nearly crumpling in half, but she still managed to swipe her sword weakly at him. Gendry grabbed the offending arm, swatted the sword easily from her grasp and hauled her against the wall to their left, pinning the other arm as well so she could not take another fist to his ear.

"Told you I'd remember," he grinned down at her, "Now give it up, bravo. I won."

She laughed, eyes sparkling dangerously. "It is so. What would you have from me then, victor?" Her voice dropped in pitch, the words rolled off her tongue with a purr.

"I…what?"

"Did you not know, monkey? If neither dies in a duel, the winner may ask anything from the loser. Her life perhaps, or maybe her sword and coin…or maybe something else, if he wishes it."

It was her turn to grin as she rolled her hips slowly into his, watching as he gaped at her.

"You must be japing. You wanted to kill me just a second past."

"Hmm, yes, a fight gets the blood flowing well. It is known." She leaned forward to breathe the words against his the pulse point in his neck, tongue flicking out to punctuate the Braavosi phrase. Gendry groaned aloud, but shook his head.

"I am not so desperate that I would try to bed a woman who would happily geld me the moment I had my cock out."

"Come now. Bravos have their honor. I swear to do no such thing." She twitched her hips again, coaxing, giving him a sweet little moan, and grinning again when his body reacted. "Besides, I am not asking for you to bed me." She nipped his earlobe. "I am asking for you to fuck me against this wall, bastard. That way we can both walk away well satisfied with this fight."

Despite the heat of her words, or the way it stirred the knot low in his belly, Gendry leaned back suddenly. "Why do you keep saying that?"

"Saying what?"

"Bastard this and bastard that. You've said it several times now. What makes you sure I am base-born?"

The woman froze, body no longer rubbing against his. The sultry gaze evaporated from her eyes like smoke and Gendry watched as all the lines of her face, soft and imploring before, sharpened like stone.

She did not speak, no, did not give him any sort of explanation, and just as he was going to repeat the question, she aimed a brutal knee at his groin. Gendry caught it with his thigh, only able to do so because her legs had not been completely wound between his. Grunting with the impact, and the shock of the completely unexpected strike, he pressed her more fully against the Braavosi stone.

"Seven hells!" he growled, desire gone and fingers tightening slightly around her wrists. "What was that for!?"

"I only meant to insult you. Do you prefer the term monkey? It suits you fairer, stupid man!" she snarled, answering his original question and ignoring his second.

He almost believed her. Almost sent her on her way, with not another word spoken between them, happy to curse her as just another damned Braavosi woman with strange reactions to everything he said-

But the woman nibbled, ever so slightly, on the corner of those full lips of hers.

The world seemed to shudder to a halt, and Gendry's heart began to pound harder than it had in the whole time they had fought. He had seen that before, when a woman's face seemed to become a transparent mask, a façade for some other person entirely, and he had glimpsed the true person beneath; precious, breathless glimpses at one he thought dead.

"It's you," he gasped. She looked at him as if he was slow in the head, "What?"

"It's you. I don't know how you did it, but it's you. The whore, the girl in the barn, this bravo, it has always been you." The words tumbled from his lips breathlessly, as he stared at the woman, searching her face for some gleam of the girl he once knew, the lady-who-was-not, the tiny, vicious creature who had slipped from his side as easily as a dream.

"Arya."

He whispered it like a prayer, hardly daring to believe that this could be possible, that she was alive, somehow, but not herself, not Arya of House Stark, but common Braavosi women of different faces and ages and professions.

The bravo's eyes narrowed dangerously, and she began to struggle against him earnestly. "I know no one of that name."

He kept her pinned, even as she arched against him, trying to free her limbs, though it surely pulled painfully at her ribs.

"Arya, please, you know me. I am Gendry Waters from King's Landing. We traveled together, fought together… nearly died together, on more than one occasion." He spoke urgently, hoping to tease some memory, some flash of recognition from her eyes.

But all he saw was growing panic. "I told you I do not know this Arya you speak of," she shouted at him, "Do you understand that, bastard!?" He recoiled slightly from the vitriol lashing from her.

She took the opportunity to swing her knee up again, and this time she hit her mark. Gendry sank to his knees, vision blurring with reactionary tears, bile in his throat.

She had already scooped up her swords and was scaling the high wall by the time he swallowed several times and forced himself not to throw up.

"Arya," he managed through the pain, "I will find you. No matter what face you take, how well you hide yourself, I will know it is you, one way or the other. And I will have the truth from you. I swear it on the Seven."

She paused at the top of the wall, glancing over her left shoulder, regarding him kneeling below her for a slow second, and shook her head.

"You will try."

And then, like the others, she disappeared.


	5. Cat of the Canals

It had been seven months since Gendry had seen Arya the bravo. Seven months of scouring the city of Braavos, looking into the face of every woman and child, hoping to see a hint of the wolf hiding beneath. When that did not yield anything, he started searching the faces of the males also. Hells, he reasoned, if she could change her face like one changed their clothes, it was not out of the realm of possibilities that she was hiding herself in a man's body. She had been comfortable as a boy, he remembered. She had not cared that her hair was shorn and her face was dirty.

He had brawled with four bravos on three different occasions when they had taken slight to him approaching them during their revelries and daring to ask after one of their own. He had won the bouts, but now sported a small scar beneath his left eye where a bravo blade had almost blinded him, and his head still ached from two nights past when he had brutally head butted the last of the four into a canal.

He had returned to all the previous spots he had seen Arya, also. The inn-keeper had not seen the pretty blonde since the night he had stayed, and mourned to him at great length the loss of her. She had not done any whoring, the madam confided in him, but she had been a hard worker, doing the lion's share of the cleaning of the rooms and linens, and a bit of cooking besides. The madam assumed it was to make up for the fact that she refused to lift her skirts and spread her legs.

Hearing that had made relief surge through Gendry's veins – no matter how fierce of a child she was, willing to do whatever it took for vengeance, he was glad she was not selling herself to meet those ends.

He had even less luck with the pig-owning woman, who could barely recall the girl called Mercy, and could not remember him at all.

One good thing his looking had got him was work. He searched like a madman in the first few weeks in the streets and winding avenues near where he had fought Arya that night. On his seventh time by a certain corner a young apprentice lad had stuck his head out and called out to him.

"If you're looking for the whorehouse, its three streets over in Bayman's Barrow."

Gendry had turned at the Common Tongue. "I'm not looking for a whorehouse, boy."

The boy, no more than eight or nine, shrugged his thin shoulders. "Master Rylo says a man only walks determined through a street with fire in his eyes if he wants to kill someone or is looking for a good woman. Seems to me like that fits you well enough, ser."

Gendry supposed the boy was right in a way. He was trying to find a woman. And he did want to wring her neck for prancing about Braavos without ever trying to reveal herself to him.

"You've got a good head on your shoulders, boy. What's your name?"

"Finn." Gendry smiled. "Nice to meet you, Finn."

Finn shook his head. "We've met before, ser. I gave you directions to the Gate, remember?"

Gendry did remember, suddenly. "Yes, you told me there was no work to be found here." He had not recognized the forge, a lumbering structure that leaned out far over the water of the broad canal by its side, held upright by what seemed to be the grace of the gods.

"Well, there's work now, if you like. Master Rylo just got loads of new orders and he's been tearing his beard out trying to figure out how we'll finish them all."

And just like that, Gendry had steady work and a pallet in the forge, and two promised meals a day. He felt as if he were twelve again, working in Tobho Mott's forge on the Street of Steel, but Rylo and Finn were not like the surly, greedy man of his childhood. Rylo was from Pentos, and wore his hair and bushy beard died scarlet. He was an imposing figure with a barrel chest and large belly, and stood even taller than Gendry, but he was jolly and laughed often, a booming sound that came from deep in his gut. He was a fair master to Finn and taught him well and if truth be told, had a soft spot for the boy. Gendry knew Finn adored him like a father. Gendry soon found himself talking late into the night with the Pentoshi over cups of mead, swapping techniques they had picked up from the different forges in all corners of the world. Rylo also was a gifted story-teller and a romantic when he had drank enough. The giant would have Gendry crying tears of mirth as he waxed poetic about the beauty of the tantalizing Black Pearl or the Lyseni Songbird or Qata, red of hair, full of breast, and lovely as a Pentoshi sunrise – legendary Braavosi courtesans all. He worked them hard in the forge, giving commands in his strong voice, but Gendry liked the feeling of fulfillment he received form working with Rylo.

He taught Gendry how he had made his forge and home so strong – a lightweight lattice of steel ran through all the walls instead of wood. Expensive, aye, he admitted, but the house would stand for a thousand years.

Finn was good company as well. The boy chattered on throughout the day, telling him of the wonders of Braavos, and dragging him to see the sights whenever they had days off. They went to the Titan, and Finn could not resist scrambling up the giant's mammoth toenail. They went to see a play or two at the Gate, sitting in the cheap seats, laughing and booing with the best of them. Finn taught him Braavosi, for which Gendry was infinitely grateful; living in the city without much of the language had not been easy going. The boy would call out words and the name of things as they worked, hammers keeping the rhythm of the lessons. In return, Finn made Gendry teach him to fight.

"What does a smith's apprentice need to know about fighting?" he asked when Finn brought it up to him. Finn scuffed a toe in the dirt of the forge. "I was born here, but my ma was Westerosi. She came here to…to find better customers, ones that wouldn't beat her so bad. She always longed for home and told me stories of fine knights and ladies – I've always wanted to be someone like in the stories, Gendry, always! Not just some bastard who would not amount to anything." The words came out in all a rush, and Gendry felt his heart ache. Finn was so much like him when he was younger.

The memory came back to him, quick and unbidden as lightening.

_"Except you wouldn't be my family. You'd be 'my lady'."_

He had been so desperate for honor, to be more than just the bastard boy who wasn't fit to look at her, that he'd leaped at the chance to leave her and prove himself. It had been folly.

"Being good at fighting isn't the only thing it takes to be a knight, Finn," Gendry said gently. "And do you not think Rylo would be sad that you long for another profession?"

Finn's denied it vehemently, swearing he would never betray Rylo, and it was these assurances that made Gendry concede. "I'll teach you to fight, but only if you swear to use your head about it. If I hear you try to use what I've taught you in any wrong manner– If I even begin to think you want to try your hand at dueling the bravos in the canals, I will not teach you anymore, and I'll make sure Rylo beats some sense into you."

Finn whooped in pleasure, undaunted by the threat. "For true, you'll teach me!? I'll be the best learner you ever did see!"

And so, along with the hard work of the days, they fought in the evenings in the small fenced in space behind Rylo's house. Gendry never would understand why the people of the Free Cities, who lived as close to their neighbors as those of King's Landing, insisted on have their own open spaces behind their homes to themselves. Rylo told him it was for gardens, to make food for their tables, but Gendry thought he was just talking out of his ass, because Rylo's "garden" was nothing but dirt.

He had to admit that Finn was a fast learner. The used light wooded swords that Rylo had quickly fashioned, and more often than not Gendry tossed the boy away easily, but he was fast and small, and stubborn as well. He would spring up immediately after Gendry knocked him down to try his hand at a different attack, always experimenting with new strokes or defenses. Sometimes he simply dropped the sword and tried to wrestle Gendry down, but Gendry would just laugh and dunk him in the rain barrel for his troubles.

He still searched, though. Sometimes he would go out at nights and not get back till the dawn. Rylo did not ask him where he went until he returned after his first run-in with a bravo, gushing blood from beneath his eye. Rylo had cursed in alarm, despite Gendry's assurances that it only _looked_ bad, and had nearly thrown him into a chair to be tended to. The older man washed the cut and prepared a poultice with quick, deft hands, and slapped it to Gendry's face. Gendry winced, but was proud he did not make a sound.

Sitting down heavily in the chair opposite him, Rylo leveled him with a stare. "You could have lost an eye," he said, stating the obvious.

"I didn't though."

"I thought you were not enough of a damned fool to go fighting bravos in the streets." Gendry sat up a little. "It's not like I went looking for a fight. I just wanted to ask a question."

Rylo snorted. "That is what we call looking for a fight, here in Braavos. What question could be so important that you would risk your hide like that?"

Gendry looked away.

They sat like that in the silence for a long while, Rylo regarding Gendry with penetrating eyes.

"Ah," he said finally, sitting back. "It's a woman, isn't it?" Gendry said nothing.

Rylo chuckled. "You're a sensible boy, but you've got a passion in your blood, and you can be single-minded and stubborn when you set your mind to something. And there's nothing in all this world that can set the fire of men's blood burning like a woman."

Gendry sighed, conceding that Rylo was right. "I don't even know what she looks like, you know." He muttered. "She was ten or eleven when I saw her last and she must now be sixteen, a woman grown. But she is here, in Braavos somewhere, and I mean to find her."

"And then what?"

Gendry looked at Rylo, puzzled. "What do you mean?"

Rylo leaned forward in his chair, "Will you marry her, once your find her? Make a smith's wife of this girl? Does she want to return to Westeros or stay here, in Braavos?" Rylo stroked his crimson beard. "For what means do you seek her out?"

Gendry did not know how to answer. He had been so desperate to find Arya again that he had not paused to think.

Rylo stood, rolling his massive shoulders and stood, head nearly brushing the ceiling, "Something to think upon, boy." He grinned at Gendry and laid a kind hand on his shoulder, "I'm sure she's something, this maid of yours, to get you so confused."

* * *

Gendry had heeded his word, eventually, and here he sat now at a tavern on Ragman's Road, sandwiched between a sailor who hailed from Myr and a Lyseni merchant, head throbbing from his fight, the ale and from thinking too much. He was meant more for action and hard work than for thinking.

Arya had told him once that he looked as if he was in pain when he overexerted his brain too much, and had called him stupid when he protested. He stared into his cup.

Why was he doing this, searching for her so determinedly? She had been his friend, yes, but that was when they were children and had known so much less of life. Did he want to see her returned safe and sound to her family and her rightful place as a lady of House Stark? She was probably safer here in Braavos than she ever would be in Westeros... and they had parted ways in the first place because she was noble and he was bastard-born. Did he…did he want to marry her? That would be impossible, considering who they were meant to be in life. Bed her maybe? When she had been the bravo she had been eager, and as the barber she had flirted with him, but those women were not her, not really, so perhaps she had been just playing the part. It made him wonder what it would have been like if she had looked herself when they fought, features refined with adulthood, brown hair and grey wolf eyes, asking him to fuck her against a wall, baring her throat to him, pale skin-

Gendry groaned and rested his forehead against the rough tavern table.

"Are you in your cups?" He picked his head up and turned to see Finn, handling a black and white cat. The lad looked balefully at the pewter tankard in his fist. "Rylo said you might be here, 'finding your way' or something. Rylo only talks in riddles when it has something to do with girls." The boy's face scrunched, utterly at a loss about why men threw themselves into such frenzies over creatures that he saw as weepy and dull.

"Why's the whole world figured out my business?" Gendry grumbled. Finn shrugged, looking down at the cat he was carrying, gripping it around the middle, its hind legs dangling. "Maybe because your face says everything you're thinking most times?" the boy ventured.

Gendry huffed a laugh. "Here, I'm not that transparent, am I?" Finn squinted at his face, seriously considering the query, hoisting the cat as it began to struggle in his grasp.

"You look like you ate some bad clams, so that means you're probably thinking about some woman," Finn nodded in affirmation. "Who is she? That baker's daughter across the canal is sweet on you, but I think she's married. Is it Tannya, the mummer girl? She smiled at you from stage that one time at the Gate."

Gendry dodged the boy's curiosity, instead rescuing the poor cat in Finn's overzealous hold, grabbing it by the scruff and inspecting it. "A cat of the canals?" The alleys that lined the watery roads of the city were full of strays- the Braavosi adored them and called on them for good luck.

The boy nodded enthusiastically, easily distracted. "I named her Jonquil." Finn loved the story his mother had told him of Florian and his fair maid Jonquil, and Gendry would never tell him that in Westeros it was a tale that was the favorite of little girls, rather than little boys.

"A good name." This cat would be the fifth Finn had brought home since Gendry had taken up residence at the forge. "Rylo will make you turn her loose, though."

Finn pouted. "But look at her eyes! Jonquil's special; I couldn't just leave her there."

It was true. Gendry looked closer at the cat's eyes, and saw they were a startling shade of grey and blue, sharp and – a shiver ran over his spine – knowing.

"I'll talk to Rylo with you. Maybe she can stay the night."

The cat blinked slowly at him, three times, then turned its head as if it had lost interest with him entirely.

Rylo had conceded quite quickly to Finn's wide eyes and begging look, and Gendry found he did not have to say anything at all. He snickered a little at the big man's softness as Finn ran around the forge eagerly setting out milk and a bit of fish for Jonquil. He played with her as she ate, petting her fur reverently, and the cat allowed it graciously. Gendry shucked off his shirt and breeches, and in his smallclothes prepared the two pallets that they used during the night. They had to be put away during the day so there was enough room to work.

By the time he was done, Finn was whispering soft compliments to Jonquil, which had finished eating and was wholly ignoring the both of them. Gendry smiled and lay down on his pallet, "Time for bed, boy." Finn picked Jonquil up and carried her over, but when the boy set her down to remove is clothes, she padded over lightly to Gendry, curled up at his side, tail winding up his chest, and closed her brilliant cat eyes.

Finn pouted, "Guess she likes you better, Florian." Gendry stared down at the cat. "Can't imagine why. You were the one who took all the care of her."

Finn yawned, not too bothered by the loss of Jonquil's affection. No doubt he would find another cat to give his love to tomorrow. "Guess you're just special then."

The boy drifted off soon after, and with Finn's light snoring and the vibrations of the cat's purr running through his chest, Gendry felt at ease. It did not matter what happened with Arya, he decided, or what he thought of her. He didn't want to think about what-ifs and things that had his head spinning in confusion. He just knew that he wanted to see her, so badly it hurt sometimes, and that was all that mattered.

* * *

**Just an interesting take for "Cat of the Canals", though the human Cat might show up soon! I have been sticking pretty close to the book version of things and have been relying on the recently released chapter of Winds of Winter for a lot of the story, but I threw a TV-verse line into this Chapter.**

**Let me know what you think! Reviews are my dearest friends :)**


	6. Mercy Part II

The first time she had seen him had been quite an accident, a twist of fate that she had neither expected nor wanted. The pig-owning brothel madam had been awfully rude to the young Westerosi man, making him sleep out with the pigs like that though there were rooms to spare, and Mercy was a kind soul who did not like to see wrong done to those that did not deserve it. She pilfered a bit of bread from the back of the tiny storeroom in the back of the brothel, taking the oldest piece else the madam would notice her thievery and beat her round the bottom with her broom.

She crept outside silently, tucking the piece of old bread into her skirt pocket, and pushed open the crooked wooden door. The man was reclining in a bed of straw, a worn brown cloak pulled around broad shoulders and a cowl hiding his face in shadow. There was not much light in the pig pen, so she thought she could see the curve of his lips, and nothing more. Wordlessly she produced the bread, and was glad when he bit into it hungrily. It appeared he had not eaten in a while.

They stayed like that a moment longer, her searching the shadows of his face – she had never seen a Westerosi man up close, she told herself.

"Name?"

The man looked up sharply, clearly thrown off guard by the question.

Mercy surprised herself, really. She had done her part to help this stranger, yet here she was lingering, even trying to communicate with him.

She almost missed it when he cleared his through and gruffly answered, "Waters."

His voice was the deep voice of a man, one she surely had never heard before, but there was something to it…her heart began to pound, though she knew not why. Nervously, she picked up a piece of her loose hair and began to twirl it between her fingers. "Much water here. It is known. You like it." She hoped she had scrounged up enough of the right words.

The man shifted this time, casting more of the light that filtered in from the lamps along the canals across his face. Mercy could now see the glint of eyes beneath the hood. He looked skeptical about her opinion, but he kept this farce of a conversation going, asking her if she spoke his language.

"A little."

But no, that was not right, was it? Why was that not right? She knew his language. In fact it was hers as well, wasn't it, the language she had learned at her mother's breast and her father's home and her maester's table - she bit down on her lip to try to push the foreign thoughts that were not hers from her mind.

The man sighed suddenly, and Mercy was startled back out of her swirling thoughts. The man was looking at her, his mouth pulled into a frown. She thought he looked sad, though she still could not see much of his face.

"What's your name, then?" he asked, his voice, familiar in a way that it should not be, running shivers up her spine.

She managed to answer him, and repeating her name to him helped. She was thrown off by this cloaked stranger, though he was not doing anything of note but sitting before her and talking. She smiled at him, thought it was more to reassure herself and calm her heart, which was beating a tattoo on the inside of her chest.

He smiled back, a broad, dimpled smile that lit up the part of his face already exposed to the light and shone in his eyes. Her belly flipped.

He held up the bread to her and said, "Well, for this, you are the most merciful queen in all the seven heavens. I will call you M'lady instead."

_M'lady._

The rage filled her unbidden at being addressed like that, queer feelings in her stomach and heart forgotten. How dare he call her such a thing, when she was just a serving girl! It was unbelievably insulting -she did not know why it mattered so much, but it did. She had never been a lady, and never would be. She snarled at him, telling him in no uncertain terms what she thought of his suggestion. Gods, she was so angry, angrier than she had been in a long time. Mercy did not get angry –she was a sweet girl with an empty mind and a love for smiling and simple stories. But now, all she wanted to do was find the madam's broom and beat this man round his stupid head.

They were equals, had always been equals, and all he ever saw was rank and birth and what did that matter at all? He was the same as her, made of flesh and hot blood, and if she knelt before him they would be eye to eye. If she knelt before him and brushed her hand over his cheek she would feel skin just like hers and if she lay her forehead against his, their warm breaths would mingle together in the space between their bodies regardless.

He stared at her, eyes desperately searching her face, mouth gaping. "Girl-"

He reached out a large hand, trying to catch her wrist, his hood falling back entirely at his movement.

He was devastatingly handsome. Older and sharper, but his eyes were still as blue and earnest and wild.

_Oh,_ she thought weakly, foolishly, _he has a beard now, also._

She had made a terrible mistake in coming here. Mercy stepped back from his hand, frantically trying to remember herself.

She was a Braavosi serving girl who like to mummers' shows and watching the fish swim in the canals and would be a whore one day. _MercedeneMercedeneMercedene._ She pulled her identity around her like a cloak, stuttered something to the man-she did not remember what- and fled.

* * *

She banged into her tiny room tucked into a corner of the brothel. It was barely tall enough to stand in and smelled of rat droppings, but she would rather be here than out in the pig pen with him. Venya, the other serving girl, grunted in her sleep and rolled over, but snored on. Mercy stepped gingerly over her body to reach her meager sleeping space.

She grabbed the small knife and cloak she kept under her blanket, throwing the grey homespun material over her shoulders and tucking the blade into her pocket where she had kept the heel of bread. The Kindly Man would not be pleased if she returned without Mercy's possessions.

She paused for a second to listen for footsteps, wondering if the man had followed her. She had seen the flicker of wonder in his eyes -_blue eyes that sparked with incredible fire and-_

She shook her head sharply, heart in her mouth.

When she heard nothing but moaning whores, she slipped the hood over her head and left the brothel, giving an uneasy look at the pig pen attached to the shabby building before hurrying in the opposite direction.

* * *

**Let me know if the Arya POV of some of the meetings is something you guys want to see more of!**


	7. The Barber Part II

**Sorry this chapter took so long, I was quite stuck with parts of it! Please, please, please offer constructive criticisms if you have any – I would like to **

**improve.**

* * *

The second time she met him was almost as unexpected as the first.

The Kindly Man had padded softly into her cell where she slept with the Waif and gave her a soft smile.

"Who are you?" he asked.

"No one," she replied.

_Liar, Liar,_ a voice hissed in her mind.

There was a man from Pyke who had settled in Braavos, an Iron Islander with grizzled grey hair and pox scars on his cheeks. His back was bent a bit with age, but his arms were corded with muscle still and his fingers were thick and cruel. He wore kohl under his eyes – the Kindly Man told her men of the sea used it to stop the sun from stinging their eyes when it reflected off the water. The old sailor continued the practice out of habit and it made his eyes look fiercer than they truly were.

She was to give him the Gift.

She learned much about the old man over the following weeks after she had been tasked with his life. He was very careful. He never slept alone because he never slept in a bed – every night he would slump over a table in the main room of a tavern with other customers milling around, impervious to their raucous carrying-on. And the other patrons ignored him as well, assuming he was simply another poor man too far in his cups to drag himself to the comforts of a room. It would be so easy to slip into the old man's chosen tavern one night, sit delicately down on the bench opposite him, and slice open the precious and vulnerable arteries that ran through the inside of his thighs. He would bleed out silently right there under the table, and no one would be the wiser until morning.

But no, the Kindly Man had specifically mentioned that the Gift must be given to this particular man in such a way that no one ever discovered his death – it had to be made to seem that he disappeared into thin air, like the cool mists that sometimes clung to the canals before the dawn.

The old Iron Islander spent his days wandering the causeways aimlessly. Some days he explored the flourishing spice market that clung to the Purple Harbor's edge. Other times he wandered among the pines of Sellagoro's Shield, but he always remembered to bring three or four men with him, bought well for their protection. He seemed a man with no purpose, content to stroll among the wonders of Braavos as if he were some visiting lord. She wondered if that indeed was his intent – to have no discernible activity that could be used against him.

The only time the man went anywhere with purpose it was to the Sealord's palace, the golden thunderbolt atop its spire glinting as it turned. She did not even try to enter the mansion – it was too heavily guarded and she would not be able to kill the man there without anyone discovering the deed.

Whenever he left, the Iron Islander's back was a little straighter and he even whistled tunelessly as he went back to his leisurely circuits around the city.

Whenever he ate, he paid the servant girl to take a bite of the food first. The girls always obliged, unwitting of the danger, merely happy to receive coin and a taste of the kitchen food of which they were forbidden to partake.

Some days the man stopped in a brothel to slake his lusts. He would always call a bath, she realized, perched as she was outside of the window of a brothel for the third time. He would dunk himself under the water and keep himself there until she was quite sure he had killed himself and saved her the trouble. But no, he would always emerge with a great splash, gasping and cursing and crying thanks to his Drowned God.

The whores were always young girls, blonde and pretty and soft. They whimpered under his cruel passions and cried openly over their aching cunts and over the bruises blooming around their necks and eyes and breasts once he left.

She slipped into the House of Black and White later that very night and descended to the sanctum on the third floor. The Waif was already there waiting for her.

"I need a face," she said. The Waif nodded silently and smiled a bit, before beckoning her to a stool, a piece of mask-like flesh with blonde hair already in her hand.

No One sat, breathed deep and closed her eyes as the Waif cut open her forehead. The familiar drip of blood over her eyelids and the uncomfortable feeling of another's skin pressing into her own made her shiver.

* * *

_She was ten, almost eleven, when she peeked into his shop for the first time. There was a man in a chair in front of him, head tilted back and eyes closed as if he were sleeping. The shop keeper ran a comb through the seated man's hair with quick strokes, humming softly under his breath. She could not discern the song from her place on the street but she liked the thrum of the melody. He produced a small pair of silver scissors from some pocket in his leather apron and –snip, snip – began to cut the ends of the man's hair before him. She liked the way the light flashed off the scissors even more than his humming – it reminded her of the fish in Blackwater Bay and how their scales glinted even more brightly against the darkness they called their home. _

_He caught sight of her then, and smiled a bit, his salt and pepper beard twitching as he did so. She almost ducked out of sight and ran home in embarrassment at being seen staring, but she stayed her ground, watching as he finished up. _

_After the customer left, he beckoned her in and sat her in his chair, and combed the tangles from her blonde hair with gentle strokes. He asked her name, and gave her a piece of candied fruit when she told him._

_She had blushed bashfully when had told her that it was a fine name, and fit her well. _

_She returned often. He let her play with his scissors when he saw how much she admired them, and laughed heartily when she used them secretly to cut a stray dog's hair as fashionably as he did the young men's who came into his shop. _

_He asked her to be his assistant, though it was hardly a job meant for a girl, but her family was desperately poor, and the money she brought in was the only thing that kept her family from starving and, even more thankfully, her father in the ale houses. _

_She loved the work, running to and fro, chattering happily to her master, sweeping up the clippings from the floor, fetching him his combs or the blue bottle of oil or perhaps the sweet smelling white powder in the pewter box that he massaged into his customers' scalps. _

_He would teach her at night, when the sun had set and the shop was closed, how to cut the hair itself. She practiced on old horse hair wigs, and glowed when he praised her. _

_She became more skilled as time went on – her scissors slipped less, and she could cut hair evenly no matter the texture, and soon she was ready to move to the more important skills – the arts of washing hair and shaving beards. _

_She practiced on the younger customers first –it would not do to upset the older, wealthier patrons with her clumsy fingers. She learned how to carefully lather the soap and water in her dish, using a thick brush to apply it to the men's faces. She was taught how to follow the natural growth of the hair as she shaved them so as to not irritate the skin, how to rub the excess soap off with a hot towel soaked in rose water. She became deft at rubbing powders into the men's hair, working in the right amount so their locks appeared softer and smelled just faintly of pine. The oils took a bit more time to learn, and at the start the younger men would leave more often than not with a head as slick as a snake's back. A drip on the fingertips, her master would remind her, and not more, and soon she had the feel of it._

_The atmosphere of the shop intrigued her – there were only men present save her, and she found herself enraptured by this exclusive world of masculinity. They talked of the Citadel, debated the veracity of the maesters' proclamations. They discussed their work, how their accounts fared and how they found new ways to edge out the competition round their shops. They talked of tourneys and the finer points of swordsmanship – they seemed to have boundless, effortless knowledge of something that sounded impossibly complex to her young female ears. Even their japes were sophisticated. _

_There, she did not have to remember that she was from the gutter. She did not have to remember how her father took his belt to her tender thighs when he was in a foul mood or in his cups. She drank up the tales and business transactions and wise council of the brotherhood of the barbershop the way a man dying of thirst drank up water. At first she only listened, but soon growing more familiar with the regular customers and, under the encouraging smiles of her master, she began to ask questions._

_Oh, at first they were timid things, her inquiries, and she kept her head lowered and eyes averted as she voiced them. The men were disgruntled by these frail, feminine interruptions in the flow of their conversation, but when they saw how eagerly she took up their words and boasts, how she wondered at their stories and how she accepted with grave solemnity their opinions, the men began to expound lectures on her, encouraging her questions, and roaring with laughter when she made the first clever jape of her own. _

_She bloomed under their tutelage, her mind becoming sharp and quick, and her tongue even more so. She experimented with the new vocabulary of her companions, weaving richness into her previously drab and common speech, playing with wordplay and wit until she could hold her own in a discussion among the men, parrying her way deftly through their arguments though she had less knowledge than they did. _

_The barber taught her letters after the nightly lessons, and though she stumbled over words slowly for quite a time, she devoured any sort of text she could, mouthing the words on signs and shop doors and sept walls and delighting when she found she could understand them. She found a tiny shop that kept a few dusty tomes tucked in the back, and by sneaking round the rheumy-eyed, tottering crone who kept it, she could sit for a while when she had no other duties and lose herself in the intricate histories of the Seven Kingdoms and what came before, so full of intrigue and dramatics that she felt her heart race as if the accounts of the past were alive in her soul._

_She began to dream, tucked up in her ragged blankets next to her six dirty siblings, that she could be more than another poor urchin on the street, or even a modest barber. Her young mind whirled with fantasy – she could be the first female Grand Maester, with a chain so long it looped down to the floor twice. She could become a great advisor to nobles - no, even better! She could be the Hand of the King, second most powerful in the Empire, and the wisest of them all. _

_But she turned twelve, then, and her sweet summer dream ended. _

_He dragged her by her hair to Blackwater Bay, oblivious in his rage to the cries of her mother, stumbling behind them, her left cheek already blossoming purple. He waved the tankard in his other fist, screaming like a madman, "I'll put you right, you little cunt. Show you what happens to girls who think they be better'n the station the gods gave them, talking all high and migh'y down at her own blood, her own father, like she's some highborn lady-"_

_He was deaf to her cries, to the fistfuls of hair he was pulling loose from her scalp – "Please, Father, I did not mean to give you offense, I only meant to-"_

"_One more fancy word from you, and I'll throw you in the Bay like the piece of vermin you are!" he howled._

_He sold her to a crew of Iron Islanders heading to Braavos for three silvers and a bitten off piece of copper. He told them to do what they liked with her._

_Later, when they were finished and she was curled up in a corner of the ship with blood dripping from her nose and sticky on her thighs, she would wish he had drowned her instead._

* * *

She opened her eyes, swaying slightly as the memories rose up around her, drowning No One in their intensity.

The Waif put a steadying hand on her elbow, but she shook her head clear a moment later, slipping of the tall stool, to glance at herself in the sole looking glass in the sanctum. She was tall and pale and pretty, with loose waves of flaxen hair and straight teeth, though one was chipped slightly – a gift from her father, her mind supplied. She was a man's walking fantasy - or rather, more importantly, she was the Man of Pyke's.

"Thank you," she murmured to the Waif, hearing the sweet cadence of her own voice.

The Waif nodded, and looked to the door. It was time for her to get to work.

* * *

But the work proved slow in the coming. She had offered her services to a brothel madam in the Purple Harbor, scrubbing the floors and the linens, hauling straw up to the rooms to stuff the bedding, fetching firewood and meals to the common room. It had taken two weeks of just that for the madam to realize that she was helpful enough to keep long term. She had been overjoyed when the older woman gave her coin for her work – less pleased she became when she was handed a flimsy blue jape of dress to wear during her hours.

She remembered the hands of the sailor men that had touched her, how her skin seemed sticky and ruined, and worst of all, how her mind felt like mud.

Lifting her chin, she said, "I will wear the dress, and gladly, madam, but do not think I will deign to remove it for any man."

"Oh?" said the madam lifting a thickly kholed brow, "And why is that? Do you _deign _yourself too good, girl?"

"No," she responded, "But I have the strength of my back and the sure grip of my fingers, which will be of more use to you than what I have between my legs."

The brothel woman snorted, amused. "We shall see, shan't we?"

And so she worked, thrice as hard as any other girl so she could be just as useful with her skirts still below her knees. She had no need for the groping hands of the drunken customers, when she had only one target in mind, one man that needed enticing.

He did not pass by for another three weeks, and she began to wonder if he would never stop by this way on his walks. But no, she reminded herself, he was a disciple of the Drowned God, and a man of the sea besides. He would not be able to resist the smell of salt and rotted fish that rolled its way off the Harbor, nor the sounds of the waves slapping against the stone causeways.

It would remind him of home, and a part of her, buried for now, understood how strong a pull that could be.

She stood sweeping the dirty steps of the brothel entrance on the last day of the third week when the Iron Islander came upon her. His eyes swept past her indifferent, and for a moment she feared she would need to call out to him, but his gaze returned and he raked his oily gaze over her form.

"Hello, sweet," he called, coming closer. "What's your name, then?"

She told him, clenching her jaw to keep from being ill at his familiar stench – salt and sweat and boiled leather.

He pawed at her, gripping her hip as he pulled her inside, leering when she stumbled a bit.

"Here, woman," he called out to the brothel owner, "how much for this one?" The brothel madam turned.

"That one's not for sale," she said briskly, "we have an arrangement."

The man laughed - a callow, sickly sound. "Everything's for sale if you have the coin for it."

He pulled out five silvers – twice the asking price for any of the other girls, she knew. The brothel madam shook her head. "We have six other girls, if it pleases you, ser."

"This one pleases me," he growled, shaking her arm for emphasis. He pulled out three more silvers and the girl saw the brothel madam hesitate before shaking her head once more.

"Curse you wretched women and your love of money," he spat, irritated. But he produced even more silver, and the owner broke, and nodded hesitantly as she grabbed up the coin. "Sorry, girl," she said, "Business is business."

_Yes,_ thought the girl, _business is business._

"Draw the bath for me," he commanded when they were alone, "and make it as cold as possible."

She almost rolled her eyes, because the water from the canals was already like ice. But she did as he directed, scurrying off with an obedient tuck of her head and silence on her lips. He liked that.

It took twelve buckets fill the tubs, and as she leaned over the lip to pour them in, he would wrap his hand around her, roughly pinching her nipples and groping her belly, the other hand rubbing himself through his breeches. "Soon," he whispered into her hair, acrid breath billowing wetly across her cheek.

She smiled and said nothing.

He removed his clothes, tossed them to her and told her to wait in the hallway. She obeyed, for a moment, until she heard the telltale splash. She would enjoy killing this one, she thought, though she knew she was not supposed to feel such a way.

She was not supposed to feel anything about the targets.

Slipping back into the room, the woman surveyed the Iron Islander for a moment. All she could see of him was his back, tangled with scars and burnt brown by the sun, muscles twitching as his body starved of oxygen and his thin, tangled hair floating in the water, bubbles stirring the strands as they popped up beside his head.

She thought of all his cruelties she had witnessed, the poor whores who scrabbled for their wages just as any other, sobbing in pain, curled up on their thin beds, knowing they would have to rise in a few hours to service the next man, no matter how their bodies rejected it.

_So easy, it is almost anticlimactic._ She took the blade she had hidden under the folds of the blue dress, slipped it under the water, under his chin, and yanked.

He jerked in reaction, then moved no more, the water darkening with his lifeblood.

_Valar morghulis._

* * *

There was a set of wheels and pulleys by the window meant for lifting up the bathtub to dump its contents into the canal – it had to be filled with buckets, but it took too long to empty it with them as well. She dragged the basin, dead man and all, to the window, careful not to slosh the bloodied water_. It was an interesting thing, _she thought, _how many bodies are at the bottom of these waters. They lay there unseen, food for the fish, the perfect hiding place for murders._

Her jobs at the tavern included preparing the rooms for guests, and she had laid stones in all of them, hidden from sight. She retrieved the ones from this room, now, and tied them about the man's bloodless wrists and ankles with twine. They would keep him from resurfacing at an inopportune time. Satisfied with her work, she passed the ropes under the bottom of the tub and hauled the tub to the lip of the window. It was a large weight, but she was strong.

She grabbed another rope that tipped the bathtub up, and pulled. Water and man alike tumbled out, falling into the dark canal with a sad, uneventful splash.

The girl lowered the bathtub to the ground, and cleaned it slowly of the blood that had stuck. After, she descended the steps slowly, making a show of wincing, and gathered tears in her eyes.

She sought out the brothel madam, but before she opened her mouth to wail at her, screaming that she had betrayed their agreement, and her trust, and that she was leaving her service this very night, the brothel woman put a heavy hand on her shoulder, eyes dark with sorrow.

"I am sorry," was all she said, "No one knows better than I what it is like to lay with a man when you do not wish it. The years have made me callous. As you went upstairs with him, I knew immediately I had done you wrong. If you wish to leave, I understand.

"But please, stay one more night; enjoy the comforts of the tavern that you have toiled for. Eat your fill of the kitchen food, and sleep in the bed of your choosing."

And so the woman found herself, sitting out of sight by the kitchens, munching happily on stew and potatoes, quite enjoying watching the tavern folk, idly guessing their professions and snickering when they made asses out of themselves.

It had been a while since she sat and simply took in the energy of Braavos, its people all laughing and fighting and fucking and clawing for life with a frenetic passion that was lacking from the dull, brown streets of her childhood.

Well, mostly dull and brown.

She remembered, in the secret recesses of her mind, the imposing stone walls of her home, the blood red leaves of her gods, snow crunching underfoot. It was a memory that was not hers and came to her though a fog, as if it were a dream.

She saw the bristled fur of her kindred; remembered the way the light glinted of her fangs. Red walls, like death, the howling of a crowd as a sword like waved obsidian cut through the sinews of a man's neck, fear and fire in the night…and _him._

A boy.

Serious and strong, his eyes shining like lapis lazuli from his dirty face. He had stayed with her though she brought nothing but death disguised with golden cloaks. He had been her rock, her source of strength, though she had been too young and furious with the world at the time to have known it.

Another memory appeared from the depths of her mind. A man grown, sitting in hay in the company of swine, looking at her with those same eyes, that same grin -

Her belly clenched suddenly, a judder of heat snaking its way through her, and she shifted uneasily at the sensation.

And then, as if her thoughts had conjured him from thin air, the man she had been thinking upon ducked through the tavern door.

* * *

**Hehehe, part 2 coming soonish! I am abroad right now so I might be a bit slow in updating.**


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